Pages

Thursday, 5 January 2012

Presenting 22 of my favourite kitchen things

As I won't be cooking, hence food blogging much, I thought this month I would showcase some of my much loved and used kitchenalia.

So lets start rolling, yes literally with rolling pins. I have about 5 rolling pins, I know how many rolling pins can a person use at one time. But over the years I have accumulated a lot of things for my kitchen. I picked up the marble rolling pin above on one of my first visits to Ayr, Scotland from a 'Help the Aged' type of Charity shop. I have to admit I haven't used it much, its serves more for display on its wooden cradle stand.

The rolling pin below starting from the left, is not actually a rolling pin per se but one for making gingerbread cookies as it has patterns embedded on it. Its either Austrian or German in origin. I bought it a couple of years ago when I was in Brittany, but have not yet had the opportunity to use it for Christmas cookies. The skinny rolling pin, second from the left was purchased on my first holiday to Turkey. Its known as a oklava and is rod style. The last two are ones I use often for rolling out shortcrust pastry: one is just simply a rolling pin - no handles, and the other a roller with wooden handle s.

An update: Just when we think to ourselves things may be getting better for us, we are again confronted with further bad luck. D returned back to the edge of Glasgow yesterday afternoon, only to find that the 100mph winds had damaged our recently repaired roof. He went into the flat and found a hole and water coming through three different places. He rung the roofers who did the repairs in Spring as its those slates that have come down. They are being absolutely unhelpful and say they cannot come out until the end of the month. D is desperate and rung another roofer who say they will be able to come tomorrow, they asked who did the original work and when D told them who it was, they informed us that they are cowboys. We did not choose them, as the roof work was carried out jointly (after much pursuing on our side) with the landlady who owns the flat downstairs. It was the company they used. D rang the Let/Rent Agency to encourage them to push these roofers to come out. They too were being unhelpful and said to him to do the leg work/find another roofer and they'll pay up their share. D is finding is hard to locate a roofer at this time and has unfortunately out of sheer desperation flagged down a Roofing van that was passing through the street. They looked at it and quoted him a couple of hundred pounds. D's hands are tied, no other reputable builders available, so has gone ahead with the work that took about 15 minutes and 15 slates! D says he is not at ease and fears that these workers were 'cowboys' too, but he needs something done to stop further damage being caused inside our flat. The roof of this flat has been an issue from day one. It was sold to us leaking and our surveyor had not picked up on it. Anyway, this has definitely damaged our prospects of selling the flat at the recommended surveyors price. On top of that, the fencing that separated our garden from the neighbour's is knocked down too by the winds. You know what this means - wandering dogs - see here for further explanation of this if your interested. The harder we work to make this flat look nice to sell, life - in this case nature, conspires against us and chucks more crap at us. I really can't wait to turn my back on this place now, but its digging its claws in us for money and love we haven't got. Life eh!

17 comments:

Dear Shaheen, I am so sorry to hear that. What a miserable start to the new year. Selling houses is so stressful and obviously all the worse now. I really hope you get a bit of sunshine soon. Just keep focussing on the all the positives to come. Hugs. xxxOh and forgot to mention your rolling pins - lovely collection. Would love to see the cookies if you ever get a chance to use that Austrian one!

I am so sorry to hear your bad news. The winds have been atrocious down here, so I can only imagine how bad they were at your home in Scotland. Take these things as a sign that you are leaving at the right time.

I hope your luck with your flat will turn and you'll be able to sell it nice and quickly.I still am loving your blog and your post about carrot cake waffles is the last push I needed to go out and buy a new waffle Iron. Wishing you a happy New Year. Karen.

How awful! My thoughts really go out to you it's awful feeling at the mercy of tradesmen, I always feel like I'm being blagged by them, particularly the ones we've had who will only really speak to the man of the house! Fingers crossed this wind will abate and they've sorted the roof x

Really sorry to hear about your roof problems. On the day we completed and moved out of our house in London the fence fell down and we had to spend time running around trying to fix it and in the end we just had to leave the new occupants some cash to sort it out. An expensive gust of wind. Could you seek recompense from the surveyour for not picking up those issues in the first instance? Love the rolling pins.

I'm so sorry to hear about your roof Shaheen, and the tiling dramas :( How stressful. Those sorts of situations are horrible ones to be in even without tradespeople messing you around. I hope you get some relief and people can help you out.

On the topic of your rolling pins - I love that one that has the imprints for cookies. Such a brilliant idea! I only own one, plain variety and now I'm thinking my collection is a little on the basic side.

Hello Shaheen. I'm looking forward to reading about your kitchen tools, though I may not be able to blog or leave comments much starting next week due to some exciting things that I hope will take place! And don't worry, I'm sure things will turn out all right in the end. Keep your chin up!

oh no, how terrible with the roof, what an awful way to begin the new year:( i have decided this year will be a great and joyous one, i am sending good thoughts your way and hope that this will only be a brief stroke of unluck, that somehow something good will come out of it, when least expected. you do deserve good stuff coming your way now!! *hugs*

About Me

est. 2008 a Welsh Not For Profit Blog: showing the versatility of vegetables and fruits by sharing and creating delicious platefuls of food inspired by the many diverse 'ethnic' world cuisines from sweet to savoury!
I have over 1500 vegetarian and vegan recipes. Please explore my culinary blog space with some honest random thoughts and things thrown in too.